


let the sky fall

by helenecixous



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, Nicole is gay for literally everyone and she's cocky and arrogant and i love her, Not Canon Compliant, Past Drug Addiction, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, also the grey's timeline is confusing so please don't shout at me, derek shepherd is overrated, pre-tumours, there is no mention of tumours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:27:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: The thing about the high that is Nicole Herman, is that if she is allowed to indulge, nobody will die, and nothing will hurt, and everything will be muted and slow and wonderful. And so in a way, in a crazy, messed up, romantic, nonsensical way, she craves Nicole more than she ever craved pills, more than she ever craved oxy, and that in itself is what threatens to destroy her.





	let the sky fall

**Author's Note:**

> ok like i said in the tags:  
> \- the grey's timeline is confusing and a lot happens. i've taken some things from season 11 but not all  
> \- in my head this all happens before either of them know about their health problems so this is 100% spoiler free for both nicole's arc, and amelia's !
> 
> also there's a bit about amelia's past with substance abuse so ... tw

When Nicole moves to Seattle, she knows nobody, and she brings next to nothing with her. She doesn’t even have a flat lined up to move into, but that’s what a messy divorce will do to a person — the bastard robbed her of her dignity, her pride, her house, and her fucking car. The only thing she has, the only thing that will always be  _ hers  _ is her medical credentials, those letters after her name will always be there, will always be unapologetically and irrevocably hers. So when she gets a call from Addison Montgomery, she decides to move.

_ Seattle is nice,  _ Addy had said.  _ It rains a lot, and people are idiots, but it’s nice, Nicole. You should come, work with me here at Seattle Grace. You can practice fetal surgery, I’m sure Richard wouldn’t mind. Actually, I’m sure he’d encourage it. _

And a few phone calls and a resignation from her current post later, she’s packed and boarding a plane and exalting in the thrill of it, the freedom that she has to make these decisions alone. She’d sent a text, just one text, to her almost-ex-husband that read:  _ Have your lawyer send the papers to Addison Montgomery in Seattle. That’s where I’ll be.  _ and after it delivers, she turns her phone off and settles in her seat on the plane, noticing nothing but the coy smiles the cute hostess at the front of the plane is giving her. She appreciates the attention, enjoys that she can smirk back at the woman and not feel bad, loves that if she really wanted to she could probably have that hostess against the wall in the cramped plane bathroom in up to five minutes. But for now, she closes her eyes and stretches her legs out in front of her and is content with the whisper of possibility.

 

Addison meets her at the airport, and of course she looks brilliant. She throws her arms around Nicole, and Nicole smiles into her friend’s hair.

“Divorce looks good on you,” she says, stepping back and holding Addison at arm’s length. “You look  _ great. _ ”

“It looks good on you!” Addison returns, and then: “God, I always forget how  _ tall  _ you are.”

“You’re not bad yourself, are they louboutins?”

“They are. Anyway, how cliché is this, huh? We’ve not seen each other for years and the first thing we talk about is shoes.”

“Untrue,” Nicole says, picking up her luggage. “The first thing we talked about is how you are glowing, as always.” She grins at Addison. “Thank you, though. For inviting me to stay with you.”

“Not a problem. We’ll get you a flat sorted out soon enough. And Richard is excited to have all the good press that follows you around being credited to Seattle Grace.”

“Fuck the good press, I’m just excited to experience those aphrodisiac elevators you told me about.”

“As if you need an elevator to get into somebody’s pants,” Addison says, shaking her head. “You’ll have two thirds of the entire surgical staff lusting over you as soon as you walk through the doors. It might actually be a dangerous disadvantage for the rest of us if you start using those elevators. Can you give the less fortunate of us a chance and use the stairs?”

***

Nicole signs her contract with Seattle Grace, and Richard allows her one month to find her bearings in the city, and to find a place to stay that is more permanent than Addison’s spare room. She appreciates it, and in that time she finalises her divorce, finds a studio apartment that is almost criminally gorgeous for a recent divorcée, and meets with Derek - spends time with him talking about the good old days when they were all trapped in marriages doomed to fail, and listens to him wax lyrical over the prodigal Meredith Grey, daughter of Ellis Grey. He updates her on the adventures of Mark Sloan, bitches about how Mark is a mess of a human being, bitches about Meredith’s friends who may or may not hate his guts, depending on the day, and tells her how Amelia works in LA now, and how she is very good - not that he would ever tell her that to her face.

“Amelia?” Nicole asks, looking up from the boxes she’s unpacking. He, of course, is fixing things that she isn’t convinced actually  _ need  _ to be fixed. “She’s back on track?”

“Did Addy not tell you?” he asks. “I thought you two were as thick as thieves. Yeah, Amy’s working. She’s doing her best to kick my ass at neuro.”

“Is it working? Is she better than you?”

Derek doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns his attention back to the radiator he’s messing with. “She’s clean,” he says. “And she’s doing well. I’m proud of her.”

“But you wish she had chosen to be a surgical goddess in some other specialty, right? Little sis stepping on your toes?” The amusement is clear in her voice. “Of course she’s better than you. She doesn’t have your debilitating arrogance. Or at least, she didn’t, the last time I heard about her.”

“My-- the last time you heard about her, she was a junkie.”

“How many arrogant junkies do you know, Derek?” she laughs, and shakes her head to herself. She knows about Amelia, of course, she had heard about Amelia’s worst days from Addison, but she had never actually got around to meeting her. “I’ve been keeping up with her work. It’s hard to  _ not  _ keep up with her work when she risks everything to change the face of neurosurgery with all of these groundbreaking achievements.”

“It’s been years and yet you still know exactly how to push all of my buttons, don’t you?” he asks, rolling his eyes.

“It must be _tough,_ ” Nicole says, straightening up to look at him. “Meredith is going to end up winning a Harper Avery if she’s anything like her mother, Addison is in high employment demand and she’s publishing articles all over the place, Amelia is a _trailblazer,_ and I’m here specialising in a field that only six of us are looking into. You are literally surrounded by women who are on the frontlines of the evolution of medicine. I imagine that’s a particularly difficult pill to swallow for you and your tiny male ego.”

“I’m literally here bleeding your radiators and fixing up this apartment, for you.”

“Oh fuck off with that, Derek, any fool can bleed a radiator and wave a spanner around at some pipes. I know you like to think you’re necessary, but I have seven degrees.”

He picks up the nearest cushion and throws it at her. She catches it easily. “You’re lucky I like you,” he says.

“So lucky. What would I do without your personal approval?”

“You,” Derek says, pointing at her and smiling, “are a lot of work, Herman. A  _ lot. _ ”

“Your inability to handle me is not a reflection on me, Derek. Plenty of men and plenty of women have been up to the task in the past, and plenty will be in the future.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Derek says. “Good luck to them, is all I’m saying.”

***

She starts working at Seattle Grace, and she researches and operates and her success rates rocket. Richard steps down as chief and Hunt steps up, and Addison leaves. The hospital politics and drama, Nicole can deal with, but Addison leaving hits her harder than even her divorce did. They both make sure to spend as much time together as they can in the weeks leading up to her move back to LA, and Nicole doesn’t  _ want  _ to tell Addison that she’ll miss her, because she knows why Addison has to go. She understands that being around Derek is a lot, and she is a firm believer that women should go wherever they need to in order to advance their careers. But still, it’s a blow, and it proves to be harder to take than she had originally anticipated.

So Addison leaves, and Meredith and Derek get married, and then there’s the plane crash and the hospital is renamed and that hurts each time she’s reminded for the first few months. Nicole jokes to Bailey that the hospital is cursed, and Bailey smiles but there is genuine fear behind her eyes, and Nicole decides to focus on her work and try not to get involved in any kind of drama. She takes over Addison’s position, kind of, and she is aware of Arizona Robbins, floating around in the periphery of her work, but she doesn’t pay her or Karev much mind at all.

_ Just do the work, _ she tells herself,  _ break the ground and revolutionise pediatric surgery, win a Harper Avery, achieve everything you possibly can while you’re still around to do it, because planes crash and people get shot and buildings burn to the ground and sometimes everything can be lost in a matter of minutes. _

***

She likes the way the scrub nurse watches her in the OR. She likes the way she gets distracted because she’s too busy staring at Nicole, watching her hands with rapt attention. She likes the way she blushes whenever Nicole meets her eyes, and she likes the way the girl visibly shivered when she smirked at her. It doesn’t take much thought for Nicole to decide that she’s been single and lonely for long enough now, and why not make a move when the scrub nurse is so willing? And then it’s just chance that she happens to walk into the on-call room that Nicole is undressing in and it’s just  _ chance  _ that she goes bright red but she doesn’t immediately leave.

Nicole turns around when she hears the door open, holding her blouse in her hands, and she smiles. “Good surgery today,” she says, and the nurse closes the door with a soft and questioning click.

“It was,” she replies, looking flustered but maintaining eye contact, occasionally letting her gaze wander down Nicole’s body -  _ who the hell wears pencil skirts like that to work? -  _ and then they both take steps forward and that’s that.

They collide, and Nicole suddenly  _ needs _ everything this woman is offering her, it has been  _ far too long.  _ She threads her fingers through her blonde hair and pulls her closer, and the timid woman who sometimes works in Nicole’s OR pushes her back into the wall and drops to her knees, pushing Nicole’s skirt up her thighs and pulling her underwear down. Nicole tips her head back against the wall, closing her eyes and letting herself gasp and  _ feel  _ with abundance, holding the back of the woman’s neck and guiding her where she needs her, and she’s afraid that she’s not going to last.

But the woman (Nicole should really learn her name) doesn’t seem to want her to; she’s driving her forward with a force that would surprise Nicole if Nicole were not so busy getting lost in it, and she’s close to being loud enough that the entire hospital would be able to hear her when the door opens.

 

Amelia has been working in Seattle permanently and officially for just two weeks, and they have been two excruciatingly long weeks of being (predictably), the  _ other  _ Doctor Shepherd, Girl Shepherd, Baby Shepherd, The Doctor Shepherd Who Isn’t Derek Shepherd, and so on. It’s irritating, but it’s what she had expected, and it’s what she is determined to work to get rid of. She doesn’t  _ want  _ to be the reigning Shepherd - the petty competition is Derek’s forté - she just wants to do her job without his silent disapproval following her around like a bad smell.

And that’s what she’s thinking of when she opens the door to the on-call room, distracted by her phone that had buzzed in her hand just seconds before, and when she looks up she is glad that there is a decent team of cardiac surgeons milling around the hospital because it feels like her heart just gave out.

“Did your mother not teach you how to knock?”

“Fuck. Fuck, I’m sorry- fuck. Uh, carry on. I’m sorry.” Amelia backs out as fast as she can and slams the door, her cheeks unbearably hot. She leans against the wall for a second, until she realises that now she can hear what she just accidentally saw, and something in her gut twists and she leaves, biting her lip and hoping to god that nobody runs into her and asks her what’s wrong.

 

Later, Amelia is standing at the nurses’ station, flicking through the notifications on her phone lazily. There’s a cup of coffee sitting behind her on the counter, and it’s a slow day. She’s managed to (mostly) forget about the earlier incident, and since then she has clipped two aneurysms and drank enough coffee that she’s going to be vibrating in about two hours. She’s just scrolling through Twitter when someone appears beside her and speaks.

“Doctor Shepherd?”

“He’s in surgery,” the nurse behind the station volunteers, and Amelia rolls her eyes.

“Hi, I’m here. Doctor Amelia Shepherd.” She looks up from her phone and into the face of the person next to her and she immediately wants the floor to open up and swallow her whole. It’s the woman from the on-call room, the one who asked her if she knew how to knock,  _ Nicole Herman,  _ according to her coat.

Amelia knows the name but she can’t think where she knows it from. Certainly she doesn’t recognise Nicole’s face, and a face like  _ that  _ she likes to think she wouldn’t forget, and all she can think of right now is the way strands of her hair had fallen over her face in that on-call room and how her cheeks had flushed a dusty pink.

Nicole looks amused, self-assured, cocky. She stands a little closer to Amelia than is one hundred percent necessary, and Amelia has to fight herself to not take a safe and measured step backward. She is being crowded, and she would be annoyed by if it wasn’t getting her so hot and bothered, and there are worse people to be crowded by.

“Are you having a good day, Amelia?” she asks, and there’s something about her voice, or the devilish shine in her eyes, or the way she is half smirking that is rendering Amelia speechless.

“It’s, uh, been slow,” she eventually manages. “Not really much to do… today…”

Nicole tuts. “Slow days are just the  _ worst,  _ aren’t they?” she asks. “I imagine it’s even more boring when you have to deal with Derek swooping in and stealing all of the good surgeries.”

“You know Derek?”

Nicole just nods, and Amelia wonders why Derek hadn’t mentioned this person before.

“He  _ tries  _ to steal the good ones,” Amelia says. “But I think I give him a run for his money. I like to think so, anyway. Which department do you belong to?”

She laughs, and it’s warm. “I bet you do. I belong to my own department. I mean, technically it’s a branch off peds. I’m a fetal surgeon.”

“Fetal surgery, huh? That’s impressive.”

Nicole acknowledges this with a nod, and she runs her hand through her hair slowly. She’s looking at Amelia with such focus that it’s disarming. She is taking Amelia apart with her eyes, and Amelia can only hold her gaze for so long before she has to look away, the same way that swimmers eventually have to come up for air.

“Listen,” Amelia starts. “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t know there was anybody in there and I should’ve knocked, but, y’know, there are locks on those doors.”

“Sorry about what?” Nicole asks, and Amelia can’t decide whether her innocent smile is just for show. “You didn’t know there was anybody in where?”

Amelia blinks. “I… earlier? The on-call room?”

“Oh.” She grins at Amelia and shrugs. “That’s okay. Nobody got hurt, and you didn’t interrupt anything for very long.” She picks up Amelia’s coffee and sips it before she puts it back down and starts to walk off. Before she can get very far she turns around and says, “by the way, I think you are  _ much  _ more dreamy than your brother. Just… so you know.”

Amelia watches her leave, and when she picks up her coffee in an attempt to distract herself from the way her stomach is twisting this way and that, she notices the smudge of dark pink lipstick that Nicole left on the rim and she’s glad that she doesn’t have to do any more surgeries today.

***

The next time she sees Nicole, they do nothing but nod at each other in passing, but still Amelia notices - she can’t help but notice - the dark red dress that she’s wearing and the way it clings to her. And when Nicole passes her, she looks, she  _ watches  _ as Nicole pulls on her coat, glances at the page she received, and sets off running down the hallway.

***

The time after that, Amelia is preparing for a sixteen hour surgery. She’s nervous, pacing, her hands on her hips - not quite ready for the superhero pose, not yet - and Nicole passes the room. She glances in, mouths  _ good luck,  _ and then she’s gone. When Amelia gets out of the surgery, Bokhee hands her a cup of coffee. “Someone left it,” she says, and Amelia’s brow furrows as she looks down at the cup in her hand. There’s no name, no number, no note, and the coffee is lukewarm at best. She takes it to the attendings’ lounge and pops it into the microwave, and it is only when she takes it out that she notices a small smear of dark pink lipstick on the rim.

***

The next morning she gets to the hospital way before rounds and sits in an empty OR so she can call Addison.

“You’re friends with Nicole Herman, right?”

“Nicole? Sure. How is she?”

“I think she’s alright,” Amelia says, and she hears Addison stop typing and give her her full attention.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! I was just wondering whether she’s seeing anybody.”

There’s a pause long enough for Amelia to wonder whether the signal had gone to shit, or whether she’d accidentally hung up. And then Addison clears her throat. “Why’d you ask?”

Amelia’s prepared for this. She says, “I walked into an on-call room the other day and she was with a scrub nurse in there. And Karev’s been talking about asking her out, and I don’t want him to embarrass himself.”

There’s another beat of silence, not as long as the last one but still long enough to make Amelia squirm. “I don’t think she’s seeing anyone, not officially. I mean, not as far as I know anyway. But I don’t know for sure, Amy.”

Amelia can hear the smile in Addison’s voice, and she doesn’t like it. She’s aware that she’s being lightly teased, and she is also aware that Addison probably didn’t buy her Karev story at all. And as if she can hear Amelia’s thoughts, Addison says, “so which parts of that are true? I’m gonna guess that the on-call room bit probably was, and the scrub nurse bit was too.”

“This is why I never call you,” Amelia says.

Addison laughs, and it’s a sound that Amelia had missed, badly. “No it isn’t,” she says. “This is why you  _ do  _ call me. Listen. Nicole is great. She has a huge heart made of solid gold, even though she doesn’t always let that show. She can be a bit of a bitch too, so don’t commit to anything until you know that she’s ready to commit as well.”

“I know,” Amelia says, and she can’t bring herself to feel like Addison is patronising her. The most important difference between Addison and Derek is that Amelia has never doubted that Addison wants anything but the best for her. “I’m not saying we’re gonna end up  _ married,  _ or whatever. She’s just so…”

“Tall,” Addison finishes. “I know. If you ever want anyone to talk to about the many attractive qualities in Nicole Herman’s possession, give me a ring, okay?”

Amelia laughs. “I guess she gets to us all eventually, huh?”

“She sure does.”

“I think she’s the tallest person in the hospital. The tallest person in Seattle, probably,” Amelia mutters. “I saw her standing next to Bailey the other day, Bailey — the shortest person in the hospital. It was a sight to behold.”

***

Trauma days are busy, hard work, and harrowing. Trauma days that include children are worse. Nicole’s been asked to stick around on the peds floor — a transport truck had been struck by lightning an hour ago and the driver had lost control. They veered into the side of a bus full of school children and the bus had flipped twice. There had been an explosion, as if all of the crush and impact wounds were not enough, and Hunt pages Nicole along with the rest of the surgical staff to let them know that this is a big one, today will be hard.

She’s usually very good at staying detached from her patients; she can do polite, she can do friendly, but as soon as she is out of the room she finds it hard to stay invested.  _ Usually _ , that is her lifeline. She’s not the kind of surgeon to get attached and to weep and wail and bring up questions of fairness because really, nothing is fair. This is real life, baby, she tells herself, and  _ nothing  _ is fair.

But today, she’s waiting anxiously for the first lot of incoming traumas, and something about the aggressively muted shock of her colleagues makes her want to cry right along with them. She glances over at Bailey who has become solid, tangible anxiety, and Nicole knows that she’s thinking about Tuck, she’s doing the  _ what if  _ routine, the  _ that could’ve been me _ routine, the  _ that could’ve been my child  _ routine, and she has to look away.

Suddenly, she wishes for Amelia. She wishes that she were away from this and that she only had to concentrate on the way she makes Girl Shepherd flustered. She wishes that she could smile and laugh easily and not be around this oppressive pre-panic, the calm before the figurative storm. Suddenly she just wants to be held.

The seconds crawl by, and she checks and rechecks the time every few minutes. She wonders whether she should go and change into her scrubs now and save time, regrets putting on her heels today. Her trainers are in her locker, along with her scrubs and her cap, but her locker is on the other side of the hospital. She examines her nails, pushes two cuticles back, and dimly she’s aware that Robbins is silently crying as she watches the news, and Hunt is gripping his phone so tightly it’s a wonder it doesn’t break. She can’t see Amelia, but Derek and Meredith are standing with Richard a little behind her. The interns are quiet but she can sense their excitement and although she understands, she wants to punch them all in their smug and naïve faces. They will all lose one today, she’s sure, and that thought slams into her with such force she has to close her eyes. And then the first four ambulances come screaming in, and there is no more time to feel.

She attaches herself to the third gurney that passes her and runs with it up to peds. According to the paramedics, the kid is seven years old and apparently too shocked to do anything but stare up at the ceiling, eyes wide and terrified. They suspect brain damage, and Nicole is talking to him but she’s not sure he can hear her, or if anything she is saying is registering at all. She regrets putting on her heels today.

The kid is mostly unresponsive to both her and Alex’s efforts, and keeps slipping in and out of semi consciousness. Nicole is trying to assess the damage and come up with a plan of action when the kid lurches up and vomits over the side of the gurney, all over the midsection of Nicole’s dress.

“Shit,” she mutters, shining her light into his eyes. “Can you follow the light for me? It’s alright, it’s gonna be okay. Can you tell me your name?”

He looks up at her, his gaze unfocused, and when he tries to finally talk to her his speech is slurred and unclear.

“Get this kid up to CT,” she tells Karev. “I’ll meet you there, I just need to get—” Her ankle rolls and she swears, grabs Karev’s shoulder to steady herself, and kicks her heels off. “I need to get changed. Go quickly, there’s going to be a queue.”

He nods, already shouting for people to clear the way. The kid looks terrified now, and no amount of Karev’s gentle talking is going to calm him down.

Nicole picks up her shoes and sprints down the corridor to her locker, tugging at the back of her dress before she’s even closed the door. She gets changed into her scrubs in record time, ignores the steady burn in her ankle that is radiating up her calf as she pulls her trainers on. She hasn’t even stopped to catch her breath before she is off again, tying her hair back as she goes.

The CT scan shows a brain bleed, and Nicole sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “Page neuro,” she says. “Now. I’m going to see about getting an OR. Get Shepherd to meet us up there.”

“Which Shepherd?” Alex asks.

“Whichever!” she snaps. “Just page Shepherd, Karev. I don’t care which one.” She’s already out of the room and heading to the OR. She texts Karev to tell him that OR three is available and sets it up. Her hands are shaking and she  _ hates  _ this pressure, and then the kid is in and Karev looks as panicked as she feels. She scrubs, willing her hands to stop trembling, wishes that this day would be over already, and she barely notices when Amelia comes in and starts scrubbing next to her.

“Karev,” Amelia says, looking at him. “You should go. Herman and I have got this. They need you downstairs.”

“This is my patient,” he says.

“No,” Nicole interrupts. “This is my patient. You’ll be more help on the peds floor, or in the ER.”

He looks like he’s going to argue, and then decides against it. He pulls his mask off and leaves, and the second of silence that follows is blissful.

“What’ve we got?” Amelia asks, and now Nicole takes the time to look at her, her hands suspended by her shoulders.

“Brain bleed,” she says. “I don’t know the kid’s name. I don’t know- I don’t know.”

“You don’t do trauma often,” Amelia says quietly. “Alright. Let’s go and save this kid’s life.”

 

Wilson comes in and gets a picture of the kid on the table, and when they finally get out of surgery Nicole and Amelia are confronted with two distraught mothers.

“Is he okay?” one of them asks, reaching out and grabbing her wife’s hand. They’ve both been crying, and Nicole is beyond grateful that she can take her cap off and tell them that their son is alive, that the surgery went well, and that they can stay with him in the ICU until he wakes up.

Both women start crying again, gripping each other and repeating their thanks over and over. Nicole wants to join them, she wants to sit down and cry, she envies them their relief, envies that the worst part of the worst day of their lives is over. And it isn’t the worst day of her life, she knows that, but she’s out of her depth and she hates it.

“Are you okay?” Amelia asks softly, taking Nicole’s arm and steering her away from the crowd of clamouring parents desperate to hear good news about their children.

“I’m okay. There’s just so much tension, so many  _ feelings. _ I deal with babies firmly on the  _ inside,  _ I know how to fix them, I know how to keep them there. I haven’t operated on a child who can have thoughts, on a child who can communicate, on a child who has already lived in too long.”  _ If we’d lost that kid,  _ she wants to say,  _ if we had had to tell those women that we lost their child, the one they had already been loving for years, I don’t know how I’d have coped.  _ But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say any more, because they didn’t lose the kid and she knows that. That family is, for now, intact, and she has done all she can. Now it’s time to move on to the next patient, the next child, the next family, the next set of terrified relatives. She has to pull herself together.

Amelia knows, she recognises the hopeless panic that Nicole is hiding extremely well. She nods, and offers her a smile. “It was nice to operate with you, Doctor Herman. We should do it again sometime.”

She wants to take Amelia into her arms and kiss her

_ (Amelia wants to be kissed. She so badly wants to be kissed) _

but it’s not the time. She needs to focus. She needs to save lives.

 

At the end of the day, Nicole slowly strips her bloody scrubs from her tired body. She peels her trousers off and spends a minute sitting on the bench in nothing but her pants and her scrub cap, breathing slowly and taking time to appreciate the quietness. Meredith and Derek and Bailey and Arizona had all rushed home to their children, and Nicole hopes that they’re holding them. She’s been a surgeon for too long to feel the euphoria, the adrenaline of such a busy day, and all she wants to do is go home, take a hot shower, and melt into bed.

Slowly, she stands up and takes off her cap, shoving it into her locker before she reaches for her dress and then remembers that it has as much blood and vomit on it as her scrubs do.

She could cry, or scream, or both. She’s so  _ tired _ , and she’s about to just pull the dress on anyway when there’s a tentative knock on the door and Amelia enters.

She’s holding a blue hoodie with the hospital logo on it, and she only looks a little bit embarrassed that she had walked in on Nicole literally half naked.

“You’re making quite the habit of walking in on me while I am exposed, Shepherd,” Nicole says, smiling and doing nothing to cover herself; she doesn’t have anything that’s not disgusting to cover herself  _ with _ .

“I am. I’m sorry. Karev said that Jason puked on you,” Amelia says. “And I saw the state of your scrubs earlier. I got you this.” She holds out the hoodie, and when Nicole takes it from her and pulls it on it’s soft and warm and too big for her, and she smiles.

“Thank you,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“I also found you some sweatpants.” Amelia smiles. “If you go out of one of the fire exits, nobody will see you wearing them.” She hands those over too and Nicole steps into them, wondering how she could have been so unprepared for today.

“I don’t know why they sell hoodies here. I don’t really know why there’s a gift shop here. As if you want a mug with the name of the hospital on it that discovered your mother’s tumour. Like, here, have a hoodie so you can always remember the day you’ll never forget anyway, but… I’m glad they do. Those hoodies are the best. I have, like, three of them.”

“You’re my favourite Shepherd,” Nicole says, and even in the haze of exhaustion she’s pleased that Amelia blushes. “Don’t tell Derek. Or do, actually, it’ll be good for his inflated ego.”

“I absolutely will. Absolutely.” She goes to leave, and pauses. “Oh, I’m sorry, by the way…”

“Sorry?” Nicole looks up from her bag. “What did you do this time?”

“Your, uh… Your scrub nurse. Girlfriend? Partner? You guys split up, no?” She wishes she’d not said anything, because Nicole is just looking at her, not saying a word. “I saw her, with… someone. Earlier?”

“My scrub nurse-girlfriend-partner?” It takes her a minute, and then: “ _ Oh! _ Her! My scrub nurse. My, uh… what’s her name…”

“You-”

“Don’t know her name. I did once, I think, but… I don’t. We weren’t together, although it’s sweet of you to be concerned. That on-call room thing was just an on-call room thing. She’s entitled to sleep with whoever she wants.”

Amelia falters, and then nods. “Right,” she says. “Yeah, okay. Well… Alright.” She smiles, a little too brightly. “Okay. Thank you. Uh… I mean, right.”

Nicole just smiles, slipping her heels on. She’s glad that she can still make Amelia flustered, even when her makeup is smudged and her hair is a mess and she’s wearing oversized hoodies. “I’ll see you,” she says, letting her fingers brush over Amelia’s hip as she passes her. “Thanks for the clothes.” She doesn’t miss Amelia shiver, and she’s grinning to herself as she leaves the hospital and goes home.

***

_ “Doctor Shepherd is a junkie. I met her in Narcotics Anonymous. She's hooked on oxy. She overdosed with her boyfriend and woke up with him dead in bed with her!” _

Nicole looks up from the paper she’s scribbling on, her eyes wide. Amelia looks like her world is ending, and Nicole watches as Derek just passes her, doesn’t bother to defend his sister or even pretend to. She starts towards Amelia, but Amelia leaves before she can even get around the nurses’ station and Meredith follows her anyway. She watches as Derek swoops in and takes Amelia’s patient, and immediately she marches over to him.

“Doctor Shepherd,” she says, her tone as cold as her eyes. “A word.”

He looks up from the charts he’s studying and takes a second to survey her. “I’m a little busy right now, Doctor.”

“A  _ word _ , please.”

He sighs, and realises that she isn’t going to leave until she gets what she wants. “Make it quick,” he says, following her into a consult room. “You’re too much like Addison, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Only I have profoundly better taste in people, Derek, what the hell was that! What the  _ hell  _ was that! You didn’t defend her, you just let that woman break an oath, you let her break your sister’s anonymity, in front of the entire goddamn hospital!”

“Nicole-”

“No! You better fix this, Derek, and you better fix it  _ now. _ I know you’ve got your panties in a twist over your life, over your career, but there is  _ no  _ reason to take that out on Amelia’s career. She’s here, and she’s sober, she’s clean, and she’s doing  _ well.  _ If you can’t handle that, that’s your business. It’s got nothing to do with her.”

“What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do, do you want me to tell everyone that that wasn’t true? It  _ is  _ true!”

“Were you always this stupid, or did you take lessons? It’s her  _ past!  _ I swear to god, if you don’t fix this, if you don’t talk to Hunt and set this straight, I will kill you.”

He just looks at her, and then she’s gone and slamming the door behind her before he can get another word in.

 

She finds Amelia outside of the hospital, and she approaches her quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Did Derek tell you?” she asks, looking up at Nicole with red rimmed eyes. “I’ll kill him-”

“I was there,” Nicole says gently, sitting on a bench and gesturing for Amelia to join her.

“You were there? Oh god.” She sits next to Nicole, staring at her hands and trying not to cry. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Derek will fix it.”

Amelia laughs, wiping her eyes. “Derek? Derek stole my surgery, Derek doesn’t care.”

“He will,” Nicole says. “Trust me.”

“What, did you threaten him?” Amelia asks, laughing again despite herself.

“Yes.”

“Wait- you did?”

“Yes,” Nicole says simply.

Amelia looks at her in the half darkness, and she is flooded with a sense of gratitude that almost hurts. It’s physical, it fills her up to the brim, makes her chest hurt and her eyes burn. She wants to cry, to properly cry, to let out this feeling before it eats her up and shuts down her organs and proves to be fatal, because she’s never felt this swelling warmth so intensely before.

“Hey,” Nicole says, punching Amelia’s shoulder before she stands up. “Don’t start thinking you’re special. I’ve been wanting to bitch Derek Shepherd out for years.” She flashes Amelia a smile. “You know where I am if you need me. Or if you want someone to punch your brother. I’m always available.”

“Nicole?” Amelia says, standing up too. “I mean it. Thank you.”

“I know you do. And you’re welcome.” Nicole throws her arms around Amelia and pulls her into a tight hug. “It’ll sort out. No one will think any less of you because of today.”

Amelia inhales sharply, closes her eyes, and holds Nicole so tightly that a part of her is worried that she will bruise her. Nicole squeezes her waist and tries to pull back, and Amelia only half lets her go.

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please? Just… just hold me for a little while longer.”

Nicole nods and pulls Amelia close again, holding her just as tightly as Amelia is holding her and just in that moment, as they stand outside the hospital clinging to each other as though the sky is falling and the world is ending, just in that singular moment that Amelia is wrapped up in Nicole and surrounded by the smell of her perfume and her shampoo, everything is okay.

***

Nicole Herman gives her a high. She is all Amelia can think about, she is all she hopes for, and she finds herself spending each second of each hour of each day waiting for her, waiting to see her, waiting to hear from her, waiting to get that page, waiting to hear her voice. And she finds that the more she wants, the more she  _ craves _ contact with Nicole, the less she is allowed. As though the universe is keeping tabs on her and her allowance of Happy, and it won’t give her more than she is due, or more than it thinks she deserves. But the thing about the high that is Nicole Herman, is that if she is allowed to indulge, nobody will die, and nothing will hurt, and everything will be muted and slow and  _ wonderful _ . And so in a way, in a crazy, messed up, romantic, nonsensical way, she craves Nicole more than she ever craved pills, more than she ever craved oxy, and that in itself is what threatens to destroy her.

She scrubs out after surgeries thinking about Nicole in the hospital hoodie, she helps Meredith and Derek make food thinking about Nicole in that red dress, she plays with Zola and Bailey thinking about the way Nicole’s arms felt around her, the way Nicole felt in her arms. Nicole is all she can think of, and she’s lost count of the times she’s picked up her phone and contemplated texting her, asking her out for coffee or a movie or (when she’s desperate for interaction with her) even a quick fuck would do, if that’s all they will end up being. It’s the uncertainty that she can’t stand, but the possibility of rejection is what she’s terrified of.

***

“Have you been avoiding me?” Nicole asks. She found Amelia standing at the coffee cart, and she takes the coffee from Amelia’s hand and sips it before handing it back.

“Avoiding you?”  _ Quite the opposite. If only you knew.  _ “No. I’ve been busy, as have you.”

“Good.” Nicole smiles, watches as Amelia looks at the lipstick that’s now on her cup. “I was worried that you were going to leave me hanging after that intense  _ snuggle session  _ we had outside.”

“Snuggle session, really? Really, Nicole?”

“Well what would you call it? Huh? You were clinging to me like a limpet. Like the world was about to end. And then, you didn’t even  _ call me. _ ”

“Did you want me to call you?”

“Girl, you rocked my world. You can’t reinvent the concept of a hug and then leave me high and dry. I’ve got blue balls, y’know.”

“If you’re not careful, people will hear and they’ll actually think you have a soft side beneath that haughty exterior.”

“Please,” Nicole says, rolling her eyes. “Nobody’s listening. And nobody would believe you.”

Amelia laughs, and she wants more than anything to reach out and run her fingers over Nicole’s lips. She wants to feel her hair, to see how she responds to a good  _ tug.  _ She wants to know how Nicole sounds when she loses herself, she wants to know what she looks like when she sleeps, she wants to know what Nicole would do to  _ her. _

“Are you thinking dirty thoughts, Shepherd?”

“Am I- what?”

“You need to work on your face. It’s  _ extremely  _ expressive. Leaves nothing to the imagination.”

Amelia glances around, can feel the heat in her cheeks and knows exactly what Nicole means. “And if I…  _ had  _ been thinking dirty thoughts? What then?”

Nicole just smirks, leans closer, and Amelia waits for it, waits to be kissed, because surely,  _ surely,  _ that’s what coming, but it doesn’t.

“How badly do you want it?” she asks, her voice so quiet it’s barely above a whisper, and Amelia closes her eyes reflexively. When she opens them, Nicole is almost all the way back into the hospital, but Amelia is not about to let her go again.

She runs after her, and manages to catch her arm. “Now  _ you’re  _ the one running,” she says, and Nicole grins but she doesn’t stop walking.

“What do you want from me, Shepherd?”

“As if you don’t know.” Amelia grabs Nicole’s arm and makes her stop. “You are  _ in  _ me. And I don’t think I’m sure what that means but dear god you are my drug of choice right now and if I don’t get my fix I’m going to break something. Don’t play with me anymore, Nicole.”

“But playing is so much fun,” Nicole says, grinning. “I  _ like  _ this side of you very, very, very much, Shepherd.”

“You do?”

“Mm.” Nicole opens the door to the on-call room they’re standing next to and pulls Amelia in, and Amelia has never gone anywhere with anyone so willingly.

As soon as the door has closed Nicole’s arms are around her waist and Amelia is pushing the white coat from Nicole’s shoulders, and then they pause, and they look at each other, and already Amelia is pulsing with something she hasn’t felt in an extremely long time. She reaches up, tangles her fingers through Nicole’s hair  _ (finally)  _ and she pulls Nicole down toward her and Nicole leaves smudges of dark pink lipstick on Amelia’s lips, on her throat, trails of it all over her. Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr: santiagoblues.tumblr.com and send me prompts/requests/commissions !  
> also on twitter: twitter.com/teflontwat  
> and pinterest: pinterest.com/santiagoblues


End file.
